Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
AFIA's key legislative priorities with Leah Wilkinson
157 Plays1 month ago
In this episode of the Feed & Grain Podcast, host Steven Kilger sits down with Leah Wilkinson, Vice President of Public Policy & Education at the American Feed Industry Association (AFIA), to discuss the AFIA’s legislative priorities as we head into the election season. Leah shares insights on key industry issues, including the Innovative Feed Act, FDA ingredient regulation, sustainability initiatives, and the importance of securing the agricultural supply chain. They also delve into the Farm Bill, formaldehyde regulation, and how the 2024 elections might shape the legislative landscape for the feed and grain industry.
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction and Episode Focus
00:00:00
Speaker
Hello, my name is Stephen Kilgurn. I'm the managing editor of Feeding Grain and the host of the Feeding Grain podcast. Thank you so much for joining me today as we dive deep into the issues affecting the feed manufacturing, grain handling, and allied industries. Today's episode is brought to you by the Benwip from New Mat Systems. The powerful dual impact Benwip removes the toughest buildup and blockages in industrial storage silos without hazardous silo entry. Learn more today at Benwip.com.
Guest Introduction: Leah Wilkinson
00:00:30
Speaker
Today, I'm talking to Leah Wilkinson, Vice President of Public Policy and Education at the American Feed Industry Association. We're discussing AFIA's legislative priorities going into the election season, where industry advocates might want to focus, and the upcoming election season itself.
00:00:47
Speaker
I hope you enjoy the interview. If you want to help out with the podcast and are listening to this in a podcasting app, please rate us and subscribe. If you're listening online, sign up for the feeding grain newsletter industry watch to see the new podcast drop and stay up to date with all the news from around the industry. Now onto the show.
AFIA's Legislative Priorities
00:01:06
Speaker
Hi, Leah. Thanks so much for joining me today. We really appreciate having you on here.
00:01:11
Speaker
Thank you for having me and being able to talk about some of the American Feed Industry Association priorities that we're working for in Washington, DC. Of course. Well, we were just talking before we started recording about how this has been a crazy summer. There's so much going on, so much happening. It's really important. I think that everyone kind of gets an update and gets their head around everything that's might affect their jobs going forward.
00:01:36
Speaker
And what we talk about today might change tomorrow. So we'll have to talk again more frequently too. Yeah. Hopefully we can have you on again soon. And by hopefully mean anytime you want to come on, just let me know and we're happy to have you. I have been lucky enough to know you for pretty much my entire career in the feed industry. And we get to talk at trade shows and all these other things, but for anyone who's might not know who you are, can you tell us a little bit about yourself? And of course your time at the American feed industry.
00:02:06
Speaker
Yeah, so Leah Wilkinson, I'm Vice President of Public Policy and Education for the American Feed Industry Association, and AFIA is
00:02:18
Speaker
Trade Association based outside of Washington, D.C., we represent the total feed industry. We have member companies that manufacture feed, pet food, all of the ingredients that you could think of that we use in feeds and pet foods. And then the equipment that we use to make all of our products and other allied industries. So as an association, we work on behalf of those members representing them
00:02:47
Speaker
at the federal and the state level in legislative and regulatory affairs, making sure that those companies can continue to do business and be able to provide that safe, nutritious, high quality and sustainable products that our customers are expecting from us and we can continue to feed the world. I've been doing this job now with AFIA for 14 years
00:03:15
Speaker
and have the pleasure of being able to work on behalf of the membership in those areas. And I specifically kind of focus in on our ingredient areas and making sure the ingredient approval processes work. I work in the feed regulatory arena, both at the state and federal level that handle our work on Capitol Hill.
00:03:36
Speaker
And then I get to focus in on aquaculture as well for our aquaculture committee. So that's kind of a little bit about what I do for AFIA. I grew up in the pork industry in Southern Minnesota, and I'm the only one to move more than 10 miles away from my family. And so I like to still stay connected to them and their pork operation as much as I can. Yeah. Well, I'm sure they're waiting for you back. Minnesota doesn't let people go easily.
00:04:04
Speaker
Very much so and my family's real strong and luckily we have technology that makes it a whole lot easier to stay connected than when I first moved away.
00:04:15
Speaker
Very true, right? Only really good thing that came out of the pandemic is the explosion in communication technology.
Innovative Feed Act and FDA Modernization
00:04:22
Speaker
Well, what we have here to talk about today is kind of just the legislative priorities that you have at AFIA, especially with, I don't know if people are aware out there, it's an election year, so some things might be changing soon.
00:04:35
Speaker
But I thought we would just kind of go through kind of the list of what you guys are really working on and starting with the Innovative Feed Act and the FDA's regulation of animal food ingredients. Can you talk a little bit about why you guys are trying to get that modernized and what it's like now and what you're hoping it's going to be like once this is fixed? Absolutely. So every year our committees and our board of directors
00:05:01
Speaker
help guide the policy priorities for the association. And one of the areas that we've been focusing in on in the last 10 plus years is making sure that the ingredient review processes that we have in the United States work very efficiently and predictable for our membership. We have
00:05:26
Speaker
such innovative technologies coming down the pike and companies that are wanting to bring new products into the United States and to our customers. But we've been really hampered by getting things through our ingredient review processes here in the United States.
00:05:45
Speaker
And that's going back to resource issues that we had at FDA. They just did not have dedicated people to look at animal food ingredients. So we've helped tackle that with them by getting them funding in the last several years to hire people. They've reorganized themselves.
00:06:04
Speaker
But one of the biggest challenges that was still remaining was this whole category of products that go beyond providing taste nutrition or roma that's what we typically have as food ingredients and that's what classifies them as food under the food dragon cosmetic act is it provides taste nutrition or roma.
00:06:26
Speaker
And so these products don't necessarily do that. So they're non-nutritive. They have other benefits beyond taste, nutrition, or aroma. And the way the FDA was classifying those products was pushing them into the animal drug category. And so it's tedious to get a feed ingredient approved, but it's really tedious to get an animal drug approved, as it should be.
00:06:51
Speaker
We as AFIA thought that that was an inappropriate determination for where these products should go because they really act within the digestive tract of the animal. They are a feed ingredient. They're not an animal drug. And so could we get them regulated appropriately? So AFIA asked FDA back in 2020 to relook at that policy that they had had in place for decades.
00:07:19
Speaker
It took them a couple of years to look and inwardly think about their policy. And as they've been coming forward in this era of trying to provide innovation and pathways for innovation, they identified this as something that they would like to change and adapt as well. So since we asked them here recently in this year, like you said, it's a year of change.
00:07:45
Speaker
We've been working with Congress on the Innovative Feed Act to get FDA specific legislative authority to regulate these products as food additives, which means they would go through the food additive petition pathway. And FDA rescinded that policy memo that they had in place. So products can start to go through FDA now, not as a drug, or they're providing them some exemptions from the drug pathway until we get the Innovative Feed Act.
00:08:15
Speaker
And so it's really the genesis from this is really so that we can be able to get products into the hands of producers that would help them with human food safety issues to be able to help on environmental issues. So think of methane reduction.
00:08:33
Speaker
other greenhouse gas reductions, anything from less nitrogen or phosphorus being emitted from the animal's excrement, those types of things. Right now, we have products out in the market that do those things, but they're not able to say they do those things. And so this would open a pathway.
00:08:51
Speaker
for those claims to be made on a product so that a producer would know that the product is safe, that a government agency has looked to make sure that they do what they say they're going to do. So if they're spending the money on it, they're knowing that it's going to do it, and then it opens up
00:09:10
Speaker
a producer then to be able to capture either carbon credits or other government programs and cost implementing measures like that to get some of those money back on their investment for doing the right thing, specifically if you're thinking of the environment. The key to it though is really trying to get that legislative authority for FDA through the Innovative Feed Act, so we have that pathway.
00:09:37
Speaker
What was it? Taste, nutrition, or aroma? Yep. That's what classifies things as a food right now. So the Food Dragon Cosmetic Act is taste, nutrition, or aroma, food for man or animals, and chewing gum. That's what classifies as a food.
00:09:55
Speaker
Wow. Sometimes our government, right? It's like if you asked an alien what food was, it would come up with that answer. Taste, nutrition, or aroma. Well, speaking of reducing emissions, which, you know, we're doing a lot more over, I mean, sustainability has been a hot topic issue for years now. We're trying more and more. So things like that seem really important. Be nice if the government aided us in making the transformation that it's also kind of asking the
Environmental Legislation: Emit Less Act
00:10:22
Speaker
industry to make.
00:10:23
Speaker
But speaking of all that, can you talk a little bit about the emit less act and especially about reducing methane emissions from cattle operations, which seems that's the number one thing that people bring up when they talk about agricultural emissions, isn't it? The burps from cows. It gets the headlines, that's for sure. So our members knew that we were falling behind the rest of the world, right? And they were being able to
00:10:49
Speaker
market these products in the rest of the world and our livestock producers around the world were being able to have access to feed ingredients that could help make these claims and help reduce the methane emissions from cattle specifically.
00:11:06
Speaker
And so tied with the Innovative Feed Act, while we need that act to be able to bring these products to market, we're also looking forward to what is needed in place so that producers, once they have products on the market, will be able to capture the cost share dollars or through conservation programs and that kind of thing. And that's what the Mintless Act is looking to do. So it is.
00:11:35
Speaker
A bill that would help focus some of our research priorities on methane reduction in the US government. It would look to the conservation programs to make sure that explicitly authorized for the payments to be given to producers. If they utilize these types of products, these feed ingredients that can reduce methane.
00:12:01
Speaker
just to help cover some of that cost for a producer. And so it's really focused in this bill to kind of taking those new ingredients and bringing them forward to producers so that they can be in their hands and help implement to know that they work and that they can capture some of that conservation program money in the future. So we're trying to be forward thinking as well as knowing we need new regulations.
00:12:30
Speaker
Well, yeah, I mean, forward thinking is what we're trying to do right now as an industry in general, right? That's why it's great to have kind of an organization like AFIA, which I feel like is kind of a model of what an industry association should be.
00:12:46
Speaker
You're there for the industry, you're lobbying, you have the connections, you're doing all this. So hopefully we get some more movement on here and you'll be able to come back and talk about when these things actually get passed and move forward and we can start making the changes we need to. I look forward to that day. Yeah, some of these it seems like we've been working on for years, unfortunately, but it's government for you. That's bureaucracy. Nothing moves quick.
00:13:11
Speaker
It is, Steven, but I'm excited because I think we finally have made some progress on these issues and have some traction, right? We have great bipartisan sponsorship for the Innovative Feed Act, for the Midwest, and some other things we're going to talk about. And that's really hard to come by in today's political environment in Washington, D.C., but
00:13:34
Speaker
I think it's a testament to the membership that we have as well as the issues that we have, right? And we're able to find that bipartisan support and hopefully it will come through for us in the end. It seems like agriculture is still one of the things that we can get Congress to agree on. Hopefully we have some chance of them moving forward with these.
FDA Resources and Regulation Improvements
00:13:57
Speaker
So the next one we have on here is FDA Center for Veterinary Medicine and how you're advocating for additional resources. Can you tell a little bit what those additional resources could do and help with the feed industry? So it's not often that you have a regulated industry asking for more regulators, right? But as I indicated earlier, this is really focused in on the ingredient review.
00:14:25
Speaker
staff and their efforts within FDA. And we want to make sure that they are properly resourced so that we don't have a pile up of ingredient submissions sitting there. And that is the barrier to bringing these products to market.
00:14:45
Speaker
And so being able to have that staff be fully staffed, fully operating, having proper technology, right? To even work together. So they're not all sitting in the same office anymore like they were prior to COVID. So how are they communicating with each other? Being able to take electronic submissions and all of those things, what these resources help go to. And so we were able to get.
00:15:13
Speaker
Money with Congress appropriated in the last five years, they've gotten about $6 million to hire up staff. And that has helped tremendously. Conversations that we had with FDA Center for Veterinary Medicine last week just talked about how much better they are at hitting their milestones for reviews. And so they are, they're getting through their reviews in a timely manner.
00:15:39
Speaker
They're not maybe all getting to the yeses that we want right away, right? They do still have questions, but they are meeting their timelines and that's great. But we know that with the innovative feed act and some of these other changes that they still need to have a few more resources. So we're just keeping.
00:15:58
Speaker
The attention there that we definitely don't want their staffing to be cut as we talk about the budget situation and so we want to at least maintain what they have if not grow if we possibly can. So that's really what we're focusing in on on that work there on Capitol Hill.
00:16:15
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, it sounds great. You don't have any regulators, but also when you just have a few of them, they don't move very quickly. Exactly. And they're tasked to do multiple things. And so now this group is really focused and it's definitely proving true that we've made progress. Well, it's also nice to have an example of why this, it works. God, if we did it, we got more funding for them. Now it's working better. We're just going to need to make sure it doesn't fall behind again.
00:16:40
Speaker
It's nice to be in a position where we're preemptively trying to do something versus trying to catch up after the fact. Can you talk a little bit about the Securing American Agriculture Act, especially how it might affect, you know, secure supply change, which once again, after COVID-19 is something that came to everyone's mind, we realized how very fragile these supply chains can be and what a disaster they could be if they get out of whack.
00:17:06
Speaker
Another high priority for AFIA is making sure that we have access to the products that we need to manufacture our feeds and pet foods. And we know that we are dependent upon certain countries for the majority of, if not all of some of our ingredients. And we're thinking vitamins here is one example, amino acids as another.
00:17:34
Speaker
And so we're vulnerable in that area, right? And wanting to make sure that we have done everything that we can do from the United States to minimize that risk as much as possible. So can we look at diversification? Is there things that we can do here in the United States that would help us be able to manufacture more of these products that we have gotten away from manufacturing in the United States? Those types of things.
00:18:04
Speaker
And so the Securing American Agriculture Act is another one of these where we were up talking to Congress and they said, well, hey, let's let's work on this. And we were able to get Representative Hinson from Iowa who was really spearheading the effort.
00:18:23
Speaker
That bill specifically is looking at having the Department of Agriculture do a report and look at our agriculture supply chain. And so it's broad, but it includes feed and these feed ingredients.
00:18:41
Speaker
to see where our vulnerabilities are specific to if we need to diversify our supply chains and then provide some recommendations. And so we've got the bill introduced in the House of Representatives. We're working on getting a companion bill introduced in the Senate. And this is something that could get attached to the farm bill or to
00:19:04
Speaker
another piece of legislation that would just help raise the awareness and help drive other programs than in the future for us to find ways to mitigate and hopefully then we are de-risking the system I think is the new word that we can use around that so we can continue to provide those products to our livestock and pet customers.
00:19:29
Speaker
That's the one thing, the food supply chain. That's what we can all agree about that we need to have lock down in case anything happens. So it's good that Congress is taking this seriously because well, we all know it takes a really long time to recover from any kind of downturn like this and any kind of operational thing. And we had a little bit of it with COVID. And so we're just trying to prevent that from happening again. It is definitely a food security issue for sure.
00:19:56
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I remember stories with, it was a lot of on the slaughtering side and things like that. But the moment those meat prices rise, people really start to care about the animal agriculture supply chain,
EPA Review and Feed Safety
00:20:08
Speaker
don't they? Well, let's talk about something near dear to my heart, formaldehyde. It's a scary word. I think that's a lot of the reason people are against it. But can you talk a little bit about EPA's recent review of formaldehyde and
00:20:22
Speaker
Of course, how the Sound Science for Farmers Act addresses their negative viewpoint of it.
00:20:29
Speaker
Many people, Steven, probably listening, don't have any idea that we use formaldehyde in animal feed. Guilty myself until a few months ago. Yep. Oh, we educated you, right? You did. Yep. So, and that we've used it safely for over 40 years. Right now, formaldehyde is approved as a chemical medicant for us to be able to reduce foodborne pathogens in feed and therefore,
00:20:57
Speaker
making livestock and those livestock products safer for you and I to eat. So specifically salmonella and poultry and swine diets. And then it's used across agriculture and other applications for animal health and food safety reasons as well.
00:21:14
Speaker
But EPA has been reviewing it for its exposure to humans and potential for cancer risk. And that reassessment that they call it, there's three different reports and reassessments that are going on within the Environmental Protection Agency. That's been going on and they're trying to really get something done here before the potential change in the administration. And part of it is making sure that EPA knows that
00:21:44
Speaker
This product is used in animal agriculture and animal feed and why it's so important and what happens to us if we don't have access to it, right? We don't have any alternatives that are necessarily as usable, but it's not only that, it's just making sure that EPA is following their science. That's what really we're focused in on.
00:22:09
Speaker
making sure they're working across the agencies and consulting with USDA and the Food and Drug Administration and that they are following all of their processes and procedures within EPA as they do those reassessments. And so that's what the Sound Science Performers Act is kind of looking at is specifically stating that they have to work across those agencies in the interagency review and providing timelines for doing that.
00:22:37
Speaker
and making sure that they're following procedures and considering agriculture in the impacts that the agency is taking. So it's really just driving home that, hey, don't forget about us. These things are important and do your job.
00:22:54
Speaker
Yeah, we know it's a scary word. Yeah, it's important still. I wrote a blog recently about formaldehyde use in feed because I wasn't aware that it was used so often in feed manufacturing. So it was a little something once I heard from you guys, I went out and educated myself. Oh yeah, we really do need this.
00:23:12
Speaker
And we appreciate you helping spread the word and you could take formaldehyde out of this sentence and plug in another ingredient and AFI would be doing the same thing, right? Because it's really about making sure the government's doing their job, thoroughly reviewing it based on science. And so we just want to make sure that all of those considerations happen appropriately before they take action on a product.
Farm Bill Priorities and Global Competitiveness
00:23:36
Speaker
Definitely. Um, so there's the elephant in the room when it comes to AG legislation this year, and that's the Farm Bill. What programs does AFIA want to see included in the Farm Bill? Hopefully this year, worst case scenario, early next year. And how do they support the animal feed industry?
00:23:57
Speaker
The basis of the Farm Bill is making sure that all of our animal agriculture and agriculture in general continues to have the programs that they need, whether it's research, whether it's the feeding programs that we have for Americans.
00:24:17
Speaker
conservation programs, the commodity programs, right? All of that is there to make sure that we continue to have strong agricultural industry here in the United States. And that's really the foundation of why AFIA is advocating crossed with the rest of agriculture, right, for getting a farm bill done as soon as possible. It's just making sure that those farmers and ranchers have the confidence that the programs are there if they need them.
00:24:47
Speaker
and that we will continue to have animals that we can feed, right? And that you and I then have products to eat. You know, I'd love to have my bacon and eggs in the morning, right? And so there are specific things within the Farm Bill that get reauthorized what's supposed to be every five years.
00:25:06
Speaker
And AFIA is looking at specifically, we've been long supporters of growing the research programs for research across agriculture, but specifically for animal agriculture and wanting to make sure that that investment is there so we can remain globally competitive.
00:25:25
Speaker
The conservation programs is a new area for AFIA because of our work with the Innovative Feed Act and the emit less act that's out there. So we just want to make sure that.
00:25:38
Speaker
There's nothing in there that would prohibit those types of products or any conservation programs that would limit any dollars that could go to livestock producers if they utilize those specific technologies or animal feeding nutrition standards in general. That's there and we're trying to bolster that work with USDA as well.
00:26:01
Speaker
Then the other part we really haven't talked about much is our abilities to grow our global competitiveness because of our exports. And so there's programs within the Farm Bill that provide monies for market access and foreign market development. And AFIA is a cooperator with USDA and receives some of those program dollars to help us grow our ability to export more products
00:26:31
Speaker
outside of the United States, right? And those program dollars haven't grown in quite some time. And so with inflation and all of that, the size of the pie has remained the same, but we have more cooperators in there going for the same money and really just looking to try to broaden out those dollars so that we can continue to
00:26:58
Speaker
do and provide programming to grow our export markets because we're running into trade deficit right now and we'd like to see that flipped. The US has the capacity, right? We could do it. We could supply more and more. We need to have markets for our product.
00:27:14
Speaker
Absolutely. And we know that there are countries that are looking for US products. And so how can we help facilitate that? And we've got different programs that AFIA is working on in Vietnam, Brazil, for example. So, and those are growing markets for us and we want to be able to continue to help
00:27:35
Speaker
capture some of that return for the industry. Yeah, yeah, definitely. Well, hopefully we get some news on it and it moves forward soon. Fingers crossed on the Farm Bill. That's always my motto. Every five years when it comes to a farm bill.
00:27:46
Speaker
Exactly. And as you mentioned, this is one that should be bipartisan, right? And so we'll see what happens here in the next couple of months, see if they get it done. Otherwise, it's going to get punted until the new Congress and then we'll have new leadership and hopefully we can get it done then. I have confidence. It'll get done eventually. It's just all about the timeline.
00:28:07
Speaker
Exactly. So is there anything else that feed members should know that we haven't covered here that you guys are working on? I know it's been a hectic summer. We talked about it even in the couple of weeks since we chatted last. It's changed a lot. So we do have some changes coming in our ingredient reviews. We had the FDA Center for Veterinary Medicine had been working with the Association of American Feed Control Officials through a memorandum of understanding for
00:28:35
Speaker
reviewing those AFCO ingredient definitions. And FDA has announced in AFCO that they're going to stop doing that cooperative effort. And FDA just recently opened up some comment periods for their proposed replacement for it. So we've got to look at their new proposals and provide some comments in the next couple of weeks back to the agency.
00:29:04
Speaker
And then they're also doing a deeper dive into all of their ingredient review systems. And so we've got an opportunity to provide some good feedback to the Center for Veterinary Medicine on what will really work well for industry. And so we're going to be busy writing comments here in the next couple of months and we'll have some good things to talk about with you in the future on those comments. Well, it'll be a busy late summer, early fall, huh? Oh, yes. Yes. I know what I'll be working on.
00:29:34
Speaker
Well, that sounds great. And will you cover that news as it comes out? Because that was a big shock at cancellation of the Mirandam. I thought that took most of us by surprise. We kind of saw it coming. And so I think now, you know, we've been trying to make some good lemonade out of the lemons that we've been dealt with. And hopefully we can get even better review systems for the animal food industry out of this in the end.
00:29:59
Speaker
best way to handle it, make that lemonade.
Impact of Upcoming Elections
00:30:01
Speaker
I feel like I'd lose my license as a journalist that I don't have, but you know, I feel like it, if I'd had you on it, I didn't ask you about the 2024 election and how it might shape the legislative landscape for the industry. What are you guys kind of following when it comes to this presidential and congressional and senatorial campaign? Well,
00:30:24
Speaker
It's been an exciting year so far with everything. I will guarantee you it's not going to get any less exciting for the rest of the year. That's for sure with the elections coming. I think as everybody knew, an even numbered year is an election year. This times up with our presidential election that's happening too. So there was really the focus of how much is going to get done and when is it going to get done.
00:30:54
Speaker
And that's where things have really been looking at on Capitol Hill. And so I think very few working days left before, well, once they come back from August recess, there'll be very few days before they go back out to campaign. Before the November elections, there's things that have to get done by September 30th, right? Funding the government being one of those. And so do they do.
00:31:20
Speaker
individual bills, do they do a continuing resolution to fund it for a short period of time and then come back after the elections?
00:31:29
Speaker
And so I really think that post-election time, Steven, is when we can look forward to some of these things hopefully being completed and moved forward. And hopefully that will happen. And then we're all geared up for a fresh start with new Congress, new administration come January 2025. Yeah, that will make some exciting IPPE sessions, won't it? That's for sure.
00:31:57
Speaker
Well, thank you so much for joining me today,
Joining AFIA and Accessing Resources
00:32:00
Speaker
Liam. For anyone who wants more information on what AFI has going on, maybe wants to join, maybe wants to get involved, where should they go?
00:32:09
Speaker
Go check out our website, so afia.org. And if you want more information about these different priorities that I've spoken about today, you can check out our advocacy center. We've got a label there, legislative priorities. And then like you said, we always are looking for more members. So go check out the membership button and see all that we can provide for you as a member.
00:32:36
Speaker
Yeah, I recommend checking out their blogs, getting information there. At least for me, it's been very good. As a fan of the content that you guys produce, it's a really great resource just to check out this website, even if you aren't a member. Well, that's all I have for today. Thank you so much for joining me today, Leah. Really appreciate you stopping by. Hopefully we can have you on again soon. Thank you, Steven. And you know that we're always here for you. That you are. You got me out of many jams, so I appreciate it. Well, everyone, until next time, stay safe out there.